This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, click the "Reprints" link at the top of any article.

Kroll Says S&P, Moody’s Again Putting Profits Ahead of Accuracy

Founder of rating company criticizes other credit raters at SEC roundtable.

Jules Kroll, a former private investigator who started a bond-rating company after the financial crisis, said the largest credit-rating firms are again putting profits ahead of accuracy amid record demand for corporate debt.

“They’re selling themselves out just as they did before,” the chief executive officer of Kroll Bond Rating Agency Inc. said today at a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission roundtable in Washington. “If you want to see the next tsunami, wait for the outcome in high yield and watch what washes up on shore.”

Companies are issuing speculative-grade bonds at a record pace even as yields on the debt have fallen to unprecedented lows with the Federal Reserve holding its benchmark interest rate near zero for a fifth year. Douglas Peterson, president of Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, declined to comment on whether the market is in a “bubble.” Prices reflect excess liquidity, he said in response to a question from SEC Commissioner Daniel M. Gallagher.

Regulators are meeting today to discuss the merits of a plan to create a board that would select ratings firms to grade structured products, which was proposed by Senators Al Franken from Minnesota and Roger Wicker of Mississippi in the 2010 Dodd- Frank Act. The proposal was intended to mitigate conflicts of interest that stem from issuers of debt shopping around for the most advantageous grades.

Peterson said that plan would introduce “new conflicts” and would be slow to implement.

“A government assignment system could create uncertainty, could slow down markets, and disrupt capital flows at a time when we could least afford it,” Peterson told the group.

Franken pressed the SEC to change the system, noting his plan had bipartisan support in the Senate before it was watered down in a conference committee. He blamed the ratings companies for not doing their jobs, contributing to a housing crash that caused millions of Americans to lose their employment.

“My plea today is that you take action,” Franken said. “If we maintain the status quo we are leaving ourselves far too vulnerable to another catastrophe.”

S&P, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings, the three biggest credit graders, were “key enablers of the financial meltdown,” the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, created by Congress with a 10-member bipartisan board, said in its January 2011 report. “This crisis could not have happened without the rating agencies.”

Cutting Reliance

The commission’s report also blamed the crisis on lenders’ irresponsible and sometimes fraudulent practices; regulators’ inattention and overconfidence; and the recklessness of borrowers and investors.

Representative Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican, said the SEC should focus on finishing regulations that strip out references to credit-rating companies from its rulebooks. The regulator is required under Dodd-Frank to remove language that refers investors to the rating firms’ grades when selecting safe investments.

“I do not believe that having the government assign which firms will do the ratings is the right answer,” Garrett told the roundtable participants. “By removing the government good housekeeping seal of approval, we can increase competition among ratings agencies and lessen reliance on ratings.”

Kermit Roosevelt, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Pennsylvania, said a system that strictly forbid bond issuers from picking and paying a company to rate the securities could be unconstitutional.

“That is a prohibition on speech, and that I think is more constitutionally vulnerable,” Roosevelt said.

Companies have sold $162.9 billion of speculative-grade bonds in the U.S. this year, up from the $132.8 billion sold by this time in 2012, when a record $358.9 billion was issued, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Yields on speculative-grade bonds, rated below Baa3 by Moody’s and lower than BBB- at S&P, touched a record low 5.98 percent on May 9 before climbing to 6.07 percent as of yesterday, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. High Yield Index.

Treasury & Risk

Treasury & Risk is an online publication and robust website designed to meet the information needs of finance, treasury, and risk management professionals. Our editorial content, delivered through multiple interactive channels, mixes strategic insights from thought leaders with in-depth analysis of best practices, original research projects, and case studies with corporate innovators.